By The Rev. Ernest Buchanan, ’09

One of the ways I have described what it means to be Anglican/Episcopalian over the years is that we are both an evangelical and catholic church;  catholic in that we have maintained the marks of the historic catholic faith, such as apostolic succession; the threefold ministry of bishop, priest, and deacon; the historic catholic creeds; and a high view of the sacraments. We are evangelical in the sense that we focus on teaching the Scriptures and call people to conversion and new life in Christ. This explanation is frequently necessary in the pastoral context in which I minister in far South Texas.

By The Rev. Edward A. Fitzhugh, ‘20

When people think of God, what is the most common perception? Is it normal to picture a large being with a long, white beard in the sky, as depicted in Michelangelo’s famous Creation painting in the Sistine Chapel? The problem is that too many people try to give God a face with a specific figure because that seems to be the most natural and satisfying way of identifying our Creator; it is what our human minds most easily perceive. Being a lover of the subject of mysticism and passionate about mystical studies, I was excited to learn about Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love.

By Jonathan Jameson, ‘19

This work previously appeared in the Anglican Theological Review under the title 'Erotic Absence and Sacramental Hope: Rowan Williams on Augustinian Desire' (volume 102, no. 4, Fall 2020), and is used here by permission of the Anglican Theological Review. Written by Jonathan Jameson, ‘19, winner of the 2019 Charles Hefling Student Essay Competition sponsored by the Anglican Theological Review.

By The Rev. Paul D. Wheatley, Instructor of New Testament at Nashotah House

One night sitting around the table the question turned to our six-year-old daughter concerning  which aspects of stories are real. Real or not real is an important distinction to a young mind, and a bellwether of the development of the life of faith.

The Episcopal Church Foundation has named the 2020 Fellows class and includes The Rev. Hannah Armidon. Currently in the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield, Hannah and her husband Robert were residents at Nashotah House, where Robert is completing his Master of Divinity in 2021.  

The Very Reverend Gus Lee Franklin III, S.S.C., died May 3, 2020, after a long and courageous battle with lung cancer. Fr. Franklin was born on January 28, 1938, in Bellevue, Kentucky, the eldest son of Ruth and Gus Franklin II. 

Fr. Franklin graduated from Nashotah House in 1967 with an M.Div. degree. Prior to the priesthood, he taught at Bellevue High School, and received his bachelor's degree from Eastern Kentucky State College. He majored in mathematics and music and was named to Delta Pi, a National Education Honorary Fraternity.

By Elisabeth Rain Kincaid, Ph.D. 

In a seminary setting with a daily rule of prayer, students and professors can easily fall into a trap of distinguishing between teaching students how to advocate for justice in the “real world” and the “in-church” liturgy of prayer and worship of seminary life. At times, the liturgical rhythms might even appear to be an intellectual or temporal straitjacket: hindering the work of classroom learning or service to the community and work for justice.

A Review by The Rev. Ben Jeffries, ’14

Historians commonly date the beginning of the Oxford Movement to Keble's Assize sermon of 1833, but Pusey dated the beginning to the publication of The Christian Year five years prior. It was the Christian Year, Pusey said, that adumbrated and inspired the true spirit that led to the catholic revival of the mid-nineteenth century, during which time it was tremendously popular: by the time the copyright expired in 1873, it had been printed in over 150 editions, and sold nearly 400,000 copies in England alone.

Sr. Catherine Grace Bowen led in the founding of The Joseph Richey Hospice in Baltimore, Maryland, together with Mount Calvary Church, an Episcopal parish in Baltimore. Continuing in a legacy of hospital care, the All Saints Sisters of the Poor were pioneers in hospice care in America, when, under Sister Catherine Grace’s leadership they founded the hospice in 1987. Throughout their history, the sisters worked with the poor of Baltimore as part of their charism of hospitality. Some of that work has included reaching out to children with special needs and ministering to AIDS patients. 

By The Rev. Thom Flowers, ‘15

By the time the Easter Term of that first year rolled around, I still desperately needed to blow off some steam and found my safety valve in the form of Nashotah House’s Skit Night. I was simply inspired by the grand idea to provide full disclosure to disabuse any prospective students in the audience who had the idea that they aspired to study at the House. I can't remember how I first came up with the notion that confounded a “letter home from summer camp” with an Ember letter, but there turned out to be so many similarities that the song practically wrote itself.

By The Rev. Dr. Michael B. Cover 

Do not forget that the Sacrament does not stand alone: it is bound up in a three-fold cord with Scripture and the Trinitarian faith. There may be moments when you as a priest may not be able to serve, as Shakespeare says, “in matter”; do not, in those  moments, fail to gather “in Word.” Returning again to Genesis 14: it was with the two edged sword of the Word of God that Abraham went to war to rescue the captive Lot, and to deliver him from the kings of Elam, Goiim, Shinar, and Ellasar. Do not flee, like the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, hired hands rather than shepherds. When the Word cannot be given in Sacrament, He is mightily present in Scripture.

A Reflection on The Bible & Theology in Color at Nashotah House | Recently Dr. Jim Watkins interviewed Silverio Gonzalez, a parishioner at St. Michael’s, to learn more about why they chose to sponsor the course and the impact it is having in their parish.

By Elisabeth Rain Kincaid, Ph.D.

“Bodies,” says the sleazy poet Mybug, portrayed by actor Stephen Fry, as he attempts to seduce the prim Miss Flora Post, played by Kate Beckinsdale, in the screwball British comedy Cold Comfort Farm, “Bodies, Miss Post, are so much more interesting than souls.” 

Now, while I would never advocate this approach as orthodox theological doctrine nor would I present it to you as an example of a successful “pick-up” line, I do think, on this Feast of All Souls’, it is important and (I hope) even interesting for us to begin by talking about bodies.

Nashotah House’s legacy of historic relationships reaches across the U.S. and abroad. Among them are the Oneida tribe, who, since the mid-1830s, have enjoyed a rich tradition in both Wisconsin and with Nashotah House. The Rt. Rev. Jackson Kemper, the first missionary bishop to the Episcopal Church in the United States (1835-1870), was known to the Oneida as Ha-re-ro-wa-gon or “He who has the Power over all the Words.” Also among the friends of the Oneida was the third Bishop of New York and founder of General Theological Seminary, John Henry Hobart (1816-1830), after whom the Oneida named their first church, Hobart Church.

By Hans Boersma, Ph.D.

In 1946 in a world shattered by war, the Catholic Church stood as an unmoved landmark. For Catholics the church offered refuge from the chaos of the twentieth century and a moral and intellectual vantage point from which to criticize the secular world and offer a constructive alternative. The bedrock of this confident, assertive Catholicism was the philosophy and theology of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), enshrined by Leo XIII in his 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris as “the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic Faith.” 

By The Rev. Lee Nelson, ‘05, SSC

Time is a central part of the rule. The day is not only fitted to the various seasons, but it tells you when to pray and when to eat and when to read. Benedict will say you might be working on the most important sentence ever written, but when the bell rings, you head to the chapel to pray. Nothing is to be preferred to the love of Christ. We Anglicans have a great deal to say about the sanctification of time through not only the Church Year, but also through the constant practice of the Daily Office. Further, through the constant celebration of the Eucharist, we enter into God’s unceasing time. This forms the soul in a way of conversion.